LONDON -- British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Friday won Parliament's backing for his Brexit deal, allowing him to forge ahead with his promise that Britain will finally leave the European Union next month.
Johnson's Withdrawal Agreement Bill should take the country out of the EU by the end of January, after expected approval in the House of Lords and final ratification in the weeks ahead. Then comes an 11-month "transition period" to allow Britain and the EU to hammer out trade, security, migration and other aspects of their new relationship.
While campaigning, Johnson often said the withdrawal deal he secured with European leaders in October was "oven ready." On Friday, he urged lawmakers: "The oven is on. It is set at gas mark 4. We can have it done by lunch or late lunch."
The vote result, tallied in the early afternoon, was 358-234.
Britain voted narrowly to leave the EU in a 2016 referendum. But previous attempts by Johnson and his predecessor, Theresa May, to pass a Brexit deal through the U.K. Parliament foundered as lawmakers objected to sections of the agreement and demanded a bigger say in the process. Johnson's election victory finally gives him the power to get his way.
"The election has produced a result: We will leave the EU at the end of January," acknowledged pro-EU Liberal Democrat legislator Wera Hobhouse. "The battle to stop Brexit is over."
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Opposition Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn called the deal "terrible" and said his side would not back it. "This deal is a road map for the reckless direction for which the government and prime minister are determined to take the country," he said.
Corbyn claimed that Johnson's vision for Brexit would be "used as a battering ram to drive us down the path of yet more deregulation and towards a toxic deal with [U.S. President] Donald Trump."
But Corbyn is on his way out and no longer in a position to change the path of his party or the country.
Six Labor Party members voted for Johnson's Brexit bill, while more than 30 abstained.
Conservative Party lawmaker Rachel Maclean ended her brief remarks, saying, "I want to wish everybody a very Merry Brexmas." Brexit supporter Mark Francois, a leader of European Research Group, which had so vexed the previous prime minister, said, "All I want to for Christmas is not EU."
Liam Fox of the Conservative Party got a loud cheer from his party's benches when he took a dig at Hugh Grant, the British actor who campaigned for tactical voting to keep Conservatives out of power. "I say this in the spirit of the season," Fox said. "I hope that even Hugh Grant will watch our seasonal offering this year, which is 'Democracy, Actually,'" a play on Grant's holiday classic film, Love, Actually.
TIGHT DEADLINE
There was grumbling from the opposition that Johnson's government had deleted compromises that were in the bill before he won his majority. The bill no longer has the same commitments on workers rights and environmental standards, or the guarantee that child migrants in Europe could reunite with family members in Britain.
"I have just read the [prime minister's] Brexit plan, and it has changed.... For the worse," tweeted Lisa Nandy, a Labor Party lawmaker considered a possible contender for party leader.
Labor Party lawmaker Hilary Benn said Johnson's bill was "a gamble with our nation's economy."
"If he fails, the cliff-edge of a no-deal Brexit becomes in just 12 months' time," he said.
The updated deal also sets what critics say is an unrealistically tight deadline to secure a new free-trade deal.
European Parliament Vice President Pedro Silva Pereira told the BBC that 11 months to negotiate a complex trade deal "is unprecedented."
"It is a different situation," he said. "We come from a level of economic integration which has no comparison with other trade agreements that we've done before. But we also have a different and difficult issue to settle, which is the level of regulatory disalignment."
Catherine Barnard, a professor of European law at Cambridge University, agreed that 11 months was an "incredibly short" time frame to negotiate a trade deal. She said she expects any trade deal reached by the end of 2020 to be very narrow, covering issues such as industrial goods, agriculture and food -- with other issues left for a subsequent talks.
"Pretty thin gruel, but that's likely all that can be negotiated in the short period of time that's available," she said.
Johnson answered that a tight deadline would focus minds and strengthen Britain's bargaining position in Brussels.
In the rest of Europe, national leaders and the European Parliament both need to approve the withdrawal deal before it can come into force, a process that is likely to be uncontroversial but that will probably still take until the end of January.
Meanwhile, EU trade negotiators are sharpening their knives. Formal talks are expected to start in March.
EU leaders were mostly quiet in the aftermath of Friday's parliamentary vote, but European Council President Charles Michel on Twitter called it an "important step."
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But he added that Britain needs to be willing to adhere closely to European regulations, known as the "level playing field," to reach a trade deal with the bloc's other 27 nations. Johnson has vowed to break free from EU rules, a step Europeans say would force them to throw up barriers to British businesses that want to sell to the Continent.
"A level playing field remains a must for any future relationship," Michel wrote in his tweet.
Barnard explained: "The EU doesn't want a big player right on its doorstep undercutting its standards and having lower labor costs and lower consumer protections and lower environmental standards."
Opening debate on the bill, Johnson said that after Jan. 31, "Brexit will be done, it will be over."
"The sorry story of the last 3½ years will be at an end and we will be able to move forward together," he said.
He emphasized the need to repair relationships within Britain. "This is the time when we move on and discard the old labels of 'Leave' and 'Remain.' In fact, the very words seem tired to me as I speak them, as defunct as big-enders and little-enders, or Montagues and Capulets at the end of the play."
He continued: "Now is the time to act together as one reinvigorated nation, one United Kingdom, filled with renewed confidence in our national destiny and determined at last to take advantage of the opportunities that now lie before us."
Information for this article was contributed by William Booth, Karla Adam, Michael Birnbaum and Quentin Aries of The Washington Post; and by Jill Lawless of The Associated Press.
A Section on 12/21/2019